According to Capcom’s Christian Svensson, the publisher is reevaluating its downloadable content policy thanks to the vocal outrage of fans who don’t like paying for content already present in the disc. However, he admitted it’s too late for Dragon’s Dogma, which will still ship with software gated behind a pay wall.
“We would like to assure you that we have been listening to your comments and as such have begun the process of re-evaluating how such additional game content is delivered in the future,” he wrote on the Capcom Unity blog. “As this process has only just commenced in the past month or so, there will be some titles, where development began some time ago and that are scheduled for release in the coming months, for which we are unable to make changes to the way some of their post release content is delivered.
“One such title is Dragon’s Dogma, where the decision to include some additional (but not all planned additional) game content for the game on disc was made at the beginning of the game’s development cycle as at the time this was determined to be the most efficient way of ensuring certain content was made available.”
Dragon’s Dogma is going to be perhaps the prime example of everything Capcom’s done wrong with DLC. I can’t say much until the review, but let’s just say glorified pop-up ads for downloadable content were already in place when I tried a pre-release copy. If Capcom’s not blowing smoke up our ass, a change in policy can only be a good thing, because I don’t want to feel like the thing that costs $60 to play is little more than a thinly veiled delivery method for more purchases.
